U.S. DRUG OFFICIAL LAUDS UTAH'S METH EFFORTS

The day after his boss proposed funding to help Mexico shut off the
supply of methamphetamine to the United States, deputy U.S. drug czar
Scott Burns was in Salt Lake City to praise a new advertising
campaign to help reduce local demand for the drug.

"Much has been done, and there's a lot left to do on the supply side
of the drug trade," Burns told the Deseret Morning News. "But the
demand side comes down to individuals making choices. That is the key
to thwarting the illegal drug trade."

Mexico is the source of the most of the marijuana and meth consumed
in Utah and across the nation, said Burns, a former Iron County attorney.

Meth use makes up a fraction of the illegal drug trade but is
considered by many anti-drug groups as the "worst drug ever."

"Worst depends on your experience," Burns said. "For families with a
loved one lost to cocaine or heroin, they're the worst drugs. Vicodin
and OxyContin -- both prescription drugs -- are the worst drugs to
someone with a family member addicted to those."

Meth is not the emergent drug it is often characterized as, Burn
said. Of the 20 million Americans using drugs, 14 million use
marijuana, 3 million use heroin or illegally obtained prescription
opiates, 2 million use a form of cocaine and 1.5 million use meth,
according to Burns' home office, the White House Office of National
Drug Control Policy.

But meth is widely regarded as the most hazardous because of its
immediate harmful physical effects on the user. In Utah, users most
often are young mothers. And no other drug can wreck someone's life
faster, he said. Users are disproportionately jailed compared to
other drug users, they are more violent, and the health costs
associated with their physical ailments from use are more expensive to treat.

"I saw it first-hand all the time as county attorney," Burns said.
"The collateral damage to children, family, community and society of
just one user makes it in a class by itself. All levels of government
and court agencies and employers must all deal with the fallout."

The drug in crystallized form is the most potent and most common. It
can be eaten, smoked or injected. It produces a chemical reaction in
the brain that makes users hyperalert, hyperactive and, in most
cases, hypersexualized.

Bingers have been known to stay awake for days on end. According to
health department reports, the longest "run" in Utah is 21 days
straight. That user was a 19-year-old Ogden man taken into police
custody after he became psychotic and violent due to sleep deprivation.

The further east Burns goes, the greater the anxiety communities have
over meth, he said, noting that meth is the only drug where pervasive
use started in the West.

"It can be found across the country today, of course, but it hasn't
hit the big urban areas as hard as it did in the West and Midwest."
He credits the federal government's crackdown on ephedra and
pseudo-ephedra, the main ingredient in meth and in over-the-counter
cold medicines.

Hundreds of labs have been put out of business in Utah and across the
nation the past five years, he said. As a result, demand has shifted
to the mega-labs in Mexico.

Health-department workers in Utah say that some meth users are
quitting because the formerly "poor man's cocaine" has gotten much
too expensive and too weak to be worth the risk.

That trend has combined with "push-back" efforts by states and
communities that are organizing joint public and private efforts
similar to those in Utah, Burns said. "There are significant, even
hopeful signs of progress."